


Smile

by KatyaMorrigan



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: F/M, Gen, Inej wondering why she cares so much, Kaz finally showing emotion, Multi, Nina and Jesper being Nina and Jesper, Other, Pre-Canon, the early stages of the Dregs pre-SoC, trying to make Kaz smile
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:00:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27475414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatyaMorrigan/pseuds/KatyaMorrigan
Summary: Inej realises that nobody has ever seen Kaz smile, and so sets out on a private mission to see him do so. Nina and Jesper are incredulous, but apparently all it takes is Kaz beating them in a lot of card games and Inej making accidental innuendos.
Relationships: Kaz Brekker & Inej Ghafa
Comments: 6
Kudos: 89





	Smile

**Author's Note:**

> Day 9 of my NaNoWriMo writing challenge this year - one oneshot a day, every day for the whole of November. I'm following the SOFTober 2020 prompts by @wafflesandkruge on Instagram to give me some fluffy starting points for the coming month of fics.  
> The prompt for today was "smile".  
> I hope you enjoy!

There were a few things you could guarantee in the Dregs.

Per Haskell would boast at length about a big wins he had offered no help in achieving. Jesper couldn’t hold onto more than fifty kruge before it all ended up in someone else’s hands over a game of cards.

And Kaz never smiled. It was a fact.

Inej had been in the dregs for just over a year, and she could count on one hand the number of times she had seen Kaz smile. And both of those were as he killed someone. Those smiles were more like wide bared-tooth snarls, a gesture of his power over a victim before they succumbed. They were not inspired by happiness, and they did not leave Inej with a feeling that Kaz was more human than he let on.

But still, she felt that one day he would have to smile properly, and she was determined to witness that small crack in his armour of horror. Kaz Brekker was not the demon that Ketterdam believed him to be: she knew rather than saw that there was something inside him.

“Have you ever seen Kaz smile?” she asked Jesper one afternoon as they did the dirty work of cleaning the weapons stash under the Slat. The basement was kept under heavy lock and key, and few individuals were allowed down there without either Kaz or Per Haskell supervising. It just so happened that the former trusted Inej and Jesper enough to leave them alone with the piles of knives, swords, guns, rifles, and a few pieces of old artillery, long enough to expect them spotless and ready for action by the end of the night.

“Kaz? Smiling? Now that’s a new one.” Jesper gave one of his easy, lazy grins. “I don’t think I’ve seen him do more than smirk.”

“He must smile sometimes. Everyone does.”

“You forget that Kaz isn’t normal. I think he’s got a big chunk of lead instead of a heart. And maybe some instead of a brain as well.” He raised the gun he was polishing to his head and let it thud against his skull with a hollow rattle as Inej giggled.

“Just because you’ve got gunpowder for brains.”

“Ah, as my Pa said, if my brains were gunpowder, there wouldn’t be enough to blow my nose,” he laughed. “’Course, he only said that as a joke. He’s still convinced I’m smart if I just sit still long enough.”

“I think you sit still with the same frequency that Kaz smiles.”

“You may be right there. Me sitting still, you fidgeting, Kaz smiling…”

“Nina going hungry.”

“There we go, we’ve found the Crow ratio.”

They both laughed, the candlelight glinting from their white teeth in the semi-darkness.

“I’m not surprised you’ve never seen Kaz smile,” Jesper said as they resumed work. “He doesn’t join us for card games or drinking, or even just for evening meals. If you don’t spend time around people like us, you don’t get the same opportunity to have fun.”

“He holds everyone at a distance.”

“Yeah… Wouldn’t it be nice if he suddenly turned into a different person and made us feel likeable for once?” Jesper sighed.

“I don’t think he would even if he wanted. Kaz is just… Kaz. Whether or not he concerns himself with how we feel.”

“You’re right.”

“And to be honest,” Inej said, spreading her arms and gesturing at the metallic-smelling hovel they were working in, “if this is how he treats his closest colleagues, I dread to think what he asks of the people he doesn’t like.”

***

Inej paid a visit to Nina not long after. They got to meet up once a week normally, as Nina joined the Dregs for weekly briefings, but aside from that she was working full-time at the House of the White Rose. Inej didn’t want to wait another week to see her, so went to the brothel and entered through the front door. Although this wasn’t the protocol that Dregs members were meant to use, it still hit a little too close to home when Inej was asked to use the back entrance of a pleasure house. She had mentioned it once to Kaz, and she had never had to again.

The doorman knew her well, and waved her up the stairs with a wink of his colourless eyes. Inej shivered despite herself as his appearance, and walked up through the regal marble stairwell.

“You’re in luck. I’ve had a cancellation this afternoon so I’m free until tonight,” Nina greeted her, dressed in an ivory robe with furred cuffs and apparently not much else. They went into her side room and sat there with the door closed, hiding the bed and dresser from view. Inej was unerringly grateful to her new compatriots for the way they catered to her needs.

“Any news from Hell’s Gate?” Nina asked. Inej relayed the few things they had heard of the prisoners inside, but there was nothing about the man Nina was searching for. They sat in relative quiet for some time, drinking jurda-infused tea and eating some of the cakes Nina always had sent up on her breaks.

“How do you manage to look so good when you eat these so often?” Inej mumbled through a mouthful of coconut-coated dough. Nina scoffed.

“Inej darling, I look good however much cake I eat. It’s just innate.”

They giggled, and Nina loosened her robe slightly as they kept eating. There was always something for them to talk about, and it didn’t take long for conversation to steer back towards the gang – and Kaz.

“Have you ever seen him smile?” Inej asked.

“Nope. Never. I think he reserves a special kind of disdainful glower just for me, if anything,” Nina laughed. “You know that look he gives me?”

“Whenever you’re being loud or inappropriate?”

“No, whenever I’m having fun,” Nina grinned. “He just doesn’t like me. We make convenient business partners, but we both know that we’d throw the other into the True Sea as soon as it suited us.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Inej started to say, but Nina interrupted her with a conspiratorial lean forward.

“Inej, he keeps all of us around because we’re useful, and that’s it. You’re the only one of us he actually likes, I think.”

“What? No. I’m just as useful as you are.”

“Untrue.” Nina grinned. “You’re more useful than me, _and_ he actually likes you. You’re quiet, and sensible, and you don’t take his bullshit. As opposed to me and Jes, who are noisy and argumentative and also don’t take his bullshit, but aren’t nearly so artful in dealing with it.”

Inej laughed.

“I do try to stay in his good books, unlike you two.”

“Exactly. But you know, I think of any of us, you’d be the one to get him to smile if he ever did.”

***

Nina’s words stuck in Inej’s mind for some time. She really thought she might be able to make Kaz smile? Inej had only been in the gang for a year, and in that time, he hadn’t once shown a clear sign of enjoyment. She didn’t have nearly the same history with Kaz that Nina and Jesper did, and she didn’t have the same closeness either. Not that she wouldn’t like it, but she and Kaz were both fairly solitary people. They liked their own space, and didn’t intrude upon the other. That was it.

Inej’s feelings weren’t hurt by Kaz’s distance from their social activities, but she did often wonder how different they might be if he joined. What might it be like if Kaz spent an evening with them? If he drank? She set no stock in him becoming a jovial and charming companion, but surely he would loosen up during that time, and they might get to see that other side of him that she was sure must live under the filth of his reputation.

So Inej put a note under his office door, inviting him to join them at the next card game they held at the Crow Club. Inej, Jesper, Nina and a few of the other more loyal Dregs would play together on Friday evenings, Jesper more seriously, and it was their one occasion in which they truly relaxed around the other members of the gang. Nina frequently drank a lot and had to be carried back to her lodging over Jesper’s slim shoulders, and Inej was happy just to sit and talk with her friends. Kaz knew about these evening affairs, but Inej wondered if he had never come to them simply because no-one had asked him. Maybe he would, now that someone had.

Friday night rolled around, and Jesper and Inej walked their way to the Crow Club from the Slat, arm in arm. Jesper was a good sport and crooked his arm at a lower angle so that Inej could reach even though it looked ridiculous, and as they passed the House of the White Rose, Nina came out of the side entrance to join them.

“What a lovely waistcoat, Fahey,” she said, putting her arm through Jesper’s spare and poking him in the ribs. Jesper rubbed the palm of his hand down the maroon and orange fabric.

“Why thank you, Zenik. And I do like your… Is it worth calling it a dress?”

Nina laughed, and her cleavage shook from the slim cut of her scanty dress.

“I think you could call it a fruit net more than you can call it a dress, Jes,” Inej said in a stage whisper, and a hand came from behind Jesper’s back to swat her. Nina laughed again, unoffended by the playful talk, and opened the door to the Crow Club.

They found their usual seats around a table at the back, and the bartender brought over their usual drinks. Inej rarely drank alcohol, and instead popped the lid from her ginger ale as Nina took the first of her numerous shots of kvas.

“Please stop me while I can still walk tonight,” she said as she winced from the burn. “I’d quite like to be able to remember this in the morning.”

“We did try to last time, but you weren’t in a particularly cooperative state of mind,” Inej recalled, looking at Jesper. He chuckled.

“Yeah, safe to say it was easier to just let you keep drinking.”

He started to deal out the cards, working out what games they could play while they waited for Annika and possibly Roeder, and just as they had each picked up their hand, the door to the Crow Club opened and Kaz walked in. He was still in his usual formal attire – white shirt, black trousers, black waistcoat, black overcoat – and the atmosphere of the club changed instantly. Seemingly unperturbed, Kaz strode to the back of the room and took a seat beside Nina.

“Deal me in,” was the only greeting he offered.

Jesper looked confusedly between the girls, and Nina threw an incredulous eyebrow raise at Inej.

“Sure,” Jesper said, picking up the main stack and giving Kaz a hand.

They played a round or two in silence, excluding the necessary game talk, before Nina decided to say something.

“Why did you decide to join us, Mr Brekker?”

“Inej invited me,” he replied casually, shuffling his hand with ease. Nina threw another look at Inej, who felt suddenly embarrassed. She picked up her bottle and took another sip of ginger ale rather than answer further.

“And you needed an invitation to join?” Jesper asked. “We should’ve sent them around earlier. Was it properly letter-headed, Inej?”

“I know I don’t need an invitation,” Kaz said, “but I had no desire to join you until Inej suggested I should. So I have.”

He looked up from his cards for the first time that evening, and fixed Inej with a intense look. He still scared her more than a little bit, and she had no idea what that long look from his coffee-brown eyes meant.

“Well,” Nina continued, “I would say it’s a joy to have you here, but instead I’m gonna order another round of kvas. Anyone else want anything? Kaz?”

“Not for me.”

“Alright then. I’ll be back in a minute. No looking at my cards!”

She walked away, pulling down her dress at the back as she went over to the bar. Inej’s attention was drawn back to the immediacy of the group at the table. Jesper was bouncing his leg uncomfortably, and Kaz was still just looking at his cards.

“You don’t look like you’re here to have fun,” Inej said, leaning on her elbow towards Kaz. He looked up.

“No?”

“The gang boss look doesn’t exactly say “relaxed”,” she said, smiling. Kaz inhaled as he sat up properly.

“I don’t dress like this to look relaxed.”

“Well maybe you should dress down if you’re going to join us for cards. Look at Jesper and Nina.”

Kaz did.

“Would I be allowed to forgo the clashing waistcoat and plunging neckline?”

Jesper gave a shout of laughter and buried his face in his hands.

“I’m offended, but you just made a joke! How dare you make it at my expense!”

“What’s going on?” Nina asked as she returned.

“Kaz just made a joke!” Jesper hollered. Kaz glowered.

“What was it?” Nina asked excitedly as she sat down.

“He’s not a fan of the group’s attire,” Inej said as Jesper died laughing again. Kaz’s mouth twitched.

“What would he prefer we wear?” Nina inquired.

“I think he wants you in a little more, and Jesper in a little less.”

“Oh, he wants me in a little less, does he?” Jesper’s brow quirked and he bit his lip.

“Don’t get so excited.”

“Aw, why not, boss? Scared you’ll like it too?”

“Unlikely,” Nina snorted.

“Can we get back to the game?” Kaz said impatiently, but Inej could see that the tension in his back had somewhat released, and the movement of his mouth was much freer now. He was having a good time.

Their game continued. Jesper ordered some shots of kvas with Nina, and Kaz kept beating them all. He was too good at card games, and he knew it.

“Have you considered drinking just to slow down your ability to play?” Inej asked as he earned another win, Jesper groaning and throwing his cards on the table.

“No. Seeing Jesper lose is entertaining.”

“Ooh, he’s willingly admitting to being entertained, now!” Nina cooed. “Tell me, Kaz, does it ever get boring being so uptight?”

“More fun than being as loose as you.”

Nina laughed aloud even as Jesper winced.

“That is a bold assumption to make,” she replied, leaning on the table. “Turns up to a card game wearing work clothes, doesn’t drink, beats all of us eight times in a row, and queries whether I know how to have fun.”

“Inej doesn’t drink and you don’t call her uptight.”

“That’s because I’m still having fun,” Inej replied. “Regardless of how tight you think I am.”

Jesper snorted, Nina cackled – and Kaz broke into a smirk. Inej blushed as soon as she realised what she had said, but she couldn’t take her eyes away from the other side of the table. Kaz was grinning now, his shoulder shaking, and as the laughter of the others escalated, he dissolved into chuckles as well. Inej was mortified, but dear god this was what she had wanted to see. He looked like a boy again, the harsh lines and ridges of his face melted into his cheeks from grinning and his Adam’s apple bobbing with laughter.

“I’m dying!” Nina choked, “Kaz has actually smiled and I’m dying right now!”

“I can’t believe it,” Jesper wheezed, “It’s happened now!”

Inej just hid her face in her hands, covering her red cheeks with her palms and peering through her fingers at everyone else. There were three people in front of her, all laughing and smiling at her, and one of them was Kaz. It seemed so natural now, to see that amount of visible happiness on his face, and it struck Inej that it was her that had done it. She had made Kaz Brekker laugh for the first time in living memory.

And all she could think about was what she would do to be able to make him smile again.

**Author's Note:**

> This was so much fun to write! I had a blast thinking about Inej's friendships with the Crows pre-Six of Crows, and writing Nina and Jesper together is always a joy. Plus... Kaz. I hope this was as enjoyable to read as it was to write.
> 
> Tomorrow's prompt is "coffee", and will be a Harry Potter Dramione-based fic.


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